And they can't set up a redirect to the new hosting location?
What in the world would be the point? That would merely duplicate the problem to a different location. As was clearly stated in the article by Mr. Finke, four-million hits every day is a crapload of bandwidth wasted re-downloading a file that will never change. The RSS 0.91 spec is finished, complete, and yes, for all intents and purposes, written in stone. Stop looking at it every damned day. It will not change. Ever. It's truly stupid for client-side software to be accessing it over the Internet to read its forever-static contents. That's like checking the writings of a dead poet every day to see if anything's changed.
And any dev who codes his app to check a file like this every day instead of caching it client-side should be smacked oh-my-god-so-frickin-hard.
Very good point. (And thank you for a civil counter-argument.)
I guess what it comes down to, is whether or not the product/service vendor took reasonable and acceptable precautions to thwart abuse of their product/service. On the one end, you can never make something 100% secure (though banks to pretty good most of the time); at the other end, you can be grossly negligent in letting known problems persist (ie. many Windows security holes).
I think it's a reasonable argument that if Microsoft would improve the security of their OS, many of the problems mentioned in the summary wouldn't happen, or at least would happen far less frequently. Average people, with minimal computer use experience, wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) have to worry about some pedophile using their system as a zombie server, or implanting pop-up software through built-in services which 99% of users have no need for (and which experienced users can enable as they choose anyway). Microsoft certainly has the resources to make huge improvements in out-of-box security, and while it may be impossible to stop all intrusions, they could certainly cut them down to a tiny fraction of what they are now.
(BTW, no matter how grossly negligent a product/service provider may be -- and they should be held liable for that -- this in no way makes criminals who exploit the product's/service's flaws any less guilty. In other words, just because someone makes it easier for me to commit a crime, doesn't mean I'm any less guilty for doing so.)
Here's the problem with your assertion: The product itself did not cause any harm. Rather, a third party -- not the product creator/vendor -- caused the harm through their direct action by exploiting weaknesses in the product.
Now, I'm not defending the well-known security holes in Microsoft's operating systems. And I have no problem with the creator of a shoddy product being held liable for direct harm caused by their product. I do, however, have a problem with Entity A being held responsible for the actions of Entity B, under any circumstances, no matter who those respective entities may be -- individuals, corporations, whatever. Should Microsoft be held liable for the known security holes in their operating systems? Absolutely. Should they be held liable for how others with malicious intent exploit those holes? No.
Addressing products that are less than 100% secure does not address the underlying problem: Human behavior. Obviously, if everyone were honest, there would be no need for physical locks, computer firewalls, and so on. However, because of the malicious actions of many people, we do need those security measures. And those measures can never, ever be perfect. No padlock, no steel door, no software firewall, no router -- anything that is designed to let "some" stuff through and block the rest -- can ever be 100% secure.
If, as you state, "a software company can be shown to be grossly negligent about the security of their operating system software", then they should certainly be held liable for their own negligence, but not for the actions of others. Ever.
As for the "logic" of the word, English is not mathematics, and two negatives do not equal a positive.
What, you never heard of a double negative? For example, "I will not do nothing" actually does mean "I will do something." So in that respect, yes, English is like mathematics.
Of course, if English is not your first language, nor one that you studied with any depth, then your statement, and the (admittedly mild) ignorance it displays, is quite forgivable.
It does when you're paying Real World Money for a continuing service, regardless of the nature of that service (ie. "entertainment" in WoW's case). If the local phone company, to whom I pay Real World Money for a continuing service, decided to "upgrade" their system and suddenly I couldn't call my family a few towns over because of these "upgrades", yeah there'd be a verbal confrontation in order, and, depending on the legality of the "upgrades", legal action. Sure, the latter example of the phone service can be judged by many people, in their opinions, as more important than the former, but that doesn't matter; you pay for a service, you expect at least a certain minimum of quality and functionality.
Only those with deep enough pockets should be able to threaten system stability. It's about access to resources. You wouldn't want the end user to get the notion that s/he could write and distribute software (shudder).
And there it is. Microsoft can finally work toward getting those damned "hobbyist" programmers locked out of creating their own "uncertified" software for their shiny new OS, and <shudder> distributing that untested and uncertified software to other hapless victims via the Web. Their attempt in prior versions to lock these "hobbyists" out by over-pricing their development suites didn't work -- they either got pirated, or the hobbyist programmers turned to alternative IDE's/compilers. (How soon until those third-party software packages no longer function?) And you don't really think the new Games For Windows initiative is for the benefit of the gamer community, do ya? All this is even more sadly ironic given that the entire computer gaming industry owes its very existence to hobbyists, yet now Microsoft wants to lock it down and claim it as their own.
I realize this is old news, but it's approaching the point where Microsoft will actually be able to enforce this. If you're not a "certified professional" with deep pockets willing to undergo (and pay for) MS certification for your software, then, eventually, your hobbyist programs (and mine!) simply will not run. Such lockout probably won't happen with this first version of Vista, but give it time. In fact some of the groundwork for locking out hobbyist computer users has already been set.
The question of when to start is a complicated one; "the last reasonable moment" is a tricky concept, and gets trickier the more damage your enemy can do to you in a short period of time.
So true. And I'd add, it's one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations, where no matter what you do, you'll be condemned by somebody. React too soon, you're a warmonger; react too late, you were negligent in properly defending your people.
If your goal to introduce independent gaming to the general public then maybe Columbine: The RPG is not where you want to begin.
*sigh*
If you're not going to read the article, at least read The F'ing Summary:
Slamdance had actively courted the creator of SCM RPG! to enter it into the festival, which then judged it to be a finalist before bending over for the corporations and shredding their credibility by removing it from the competition.
It's not as if Slamdance was "stuck" with something they found distasteful, they initially chose this game to be a finalist, before caving to pressure from sponsors to kick it. Obviously the Slamdance organizers did like the game to begin with, or at least thought it had artistic merit, or they wouldn't have nominated it as a finalist in the first place. For them to do a complete about-face and remove the game afterward, based solely on the pressure of corporate sponsors, completely destroys any appearance of integrity they may have had, and reduces this once "independent" games festival to nothing more than a corporate marketing platform.
And while I'm on a rant, it needs to be pointed out to many people that, while you may find something distasteful and even patently offensive -- which in itself is certainly your right to choose what you like or dislike -- that does not give you or I or anyone else the right to silence those offensive statements or works of art. The whole point of the First Amendment is not to protect speech that you like, but to protect speech that you don't like, whether it's a social viewpoint or political commentary or an artistic endeavor, or, as is most common today, artistic endeavors that provide an avenue for controversial statements. Just remember: If someone's voice can be silenced because you don't like what they say, then yours can be silenced because someone else doesn't like what you have to say.
his blog is the best source on the net for in-depth weather analysis
O Rly? Scoured the entire Internet, have ya kpw10? Please. I think we can have an intelligent discussion on this topic without resorting to such idiotic claims for the sake of "proving" the "value" of one's source by aggrandizing it.
Inconvenient truth is pretty much boring for the educated people - there's nothing in it that I wouldn't know already. I can't help but feel sorry for people who find it creepy or shocking - that just shows they live in some dark basement or something
Your attitude is self-righteous, narcissistic, and condescending. It is far better to have learned something for the first time, than to never have learned it at all. I can't help but feel sorry for people who too-easily forget that they, too, once learned something for the first time, when it was new to them.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."
This tends to discourage the trigger-happy-brain-dead-mob types from doing anything painful.
OR, they could just grab you and take you to a secluded location (abandoned warehouse/cabin in woods/whatever), torture the information of your DMS out of you, use said info to disable your DMS, and then kill you.
Now, you could get someone you trust to help with part of the setup work so that not all the information can be tortured out of you, but then you're endangering the life of that person as well, whose name can be tortured from you, the badguys go after that person, torture them for their share of the info... you get the point.
...re-wrote the network wiring diagrams manually (they were, apparently, somewhat classified "need to know" information and we as system administrators did not "need to know")...
Buh? Who's the bureaucratic genius that thought up that policy? That's like saying the cook doesn't need to know the recipes...
That would be great if he wanted legal advice and information, but he doesn't. He wants computer-related technical advice and info, which he likely won't find on a legal website. Hence, he posted to a 'nerd' website to find those technical answers. Funny, I thought he made that pretty clear?
For example, he might ask:
Can these "experts" guarantee the authenticity of screenshots showing IP addresses, ensuring they haven't been altered? (Most likely answer: No Frickin' Way.)
What methods were used to determine that defendant was using the IP addresses in question at the time of the infringement? Can these methods be duplicated independently by outside IT personnel? What kind of authenticity measures were applied to the networking logs indicating that the defendant was indeed using those IP addresses at the time? Are they plain text files? How can anyone be sure they haven't been altered?
Did they verify the contents of the allegedly infringing files to ensure that they do, indeed, contain material copyrighted by the plaintiff? And yes, checksums can be faked, with some effort, so they would have to actually listen to the files. Are these files still intact on the defendant's hard drive, and if so, how were they verified to have not been placed there after seizure?
I could go on all day, but you get the point. The lawyer doesn't want legal advice, he wants technical advice. Pay attention, dude.
I believe GP was merely pointing out that industrial machinery isn't the only possible source of strong temperature-affecting emissions. In either case, human activity is (theoretically) to blame, but it's not the human activity that many environmentalists want to blame.
You said we needed a military to defend ourselves.
NO, I did not. Thanks to imbeciles like you who like to put words in my mouth (which, BTW, is the same as lying), I'm forced to do the unthinkable and quote myself in order to clear this up:
...any sovereign nation (not just the U.S.) needs a standing military to defend itself...
Is it starting to sink in yet? In my original statement, if you'd bothered to actually read it in its entirety as a contiguous whole, and not tried to "interpret" it (which is idiotic because I said exactly what I meant), I was explicitly talking about all nations, everywhere, not a specific nation or any one conflict, and I even said exactly that. In my closing paragraph, which you misquoted, I was clearly speaking more broadly of warfare in general, and the future of warfare, and the prospect of making it less lethal and destructive between any nations, not any specific nation or conflict.
I have pointed out that we don't use the military to defend ourselves, we use it to rape other countries.
I never stated nor implied any argument for or against that assertion, and as I've said elsewhere in this thread, that is a separate debate from a discussion of non-lethal weapons, regardless of who manufactures or deploys them.
Wow polyyanna. Since when has the US military been used to defend itself? It's a big cock we have to rape other countries in the ass when they don't do what we want. It has nothing to do with defending ourselves.
So how's that tunnel vision workin' for ya? Good job on completely missing my point. Think bigger. Even if the U.S. suddenly ceased to exist, mankind would still have war. It's in our nature, and we clearly haven't evolved anywhere near the point of putting any and all violent conflict behind us. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I'm not defending the actions of the U.S. in the Middle East, but that's not the point. The point is, the only way humanity will survive -- aside from completely and utterly laying down all arms and resolving all conflicts peacefully (I doubt even the brightest optimist thinks that will happen) -- is to ensure that casualties of war are kept to a bare minimum. This weapon certainly may have harmful side effects, but it's a (small) step in the right direction. Weapon manufacturers are finally taking non-lethal arms seriously; believe it or not, this is a 'good thing'. Besides, do you seriously think the U.S. is the only nation developing "non-lethal weapons"? There are many other such concepts in development around the world, including for example sound-based deterrence weapons. Development of non-lethal weapons will continue into the future, regardless of which nation(s) conduct the necessary research. All this has nothing to do with the war in Iraq, I never said it did, I explicitly painted a broader image (which you plainly chose to ignore) -- it has to do with the future of warfare. We can develop ever more lethal weapons, or we can develop weapons that repel enemies with minimal harm... which would you prefer?
I won't argue that, but it's a separate debate for another time. Neither I nor GPP mentioned the war in Iraq. Yes, they're testing this new weapon system in Iraq, but that has no bearing on the merits of the system itself as a non-lethal deterrent as an alternative to conventional projectile weapons in any present or future military conflict.
The alternative to the true pacifist is to let the ones without sins throw the first stones or to turn the other cheek.
Unfortunately, not everyone shares that ideal. If they did, this world would be an amazing place to live, instead of the conflict-ridden shit-hole we have now. Hell, even "live and let live", or the Golden Rule, would be an awesome place to start. The sad fact is, not everyone believes in those concepts, and as a consequence everyone must be capable of defending themselves against aggressors. It's a sad truth, but it is what it is. As long as human beings exist, weapons will always be with us... the best we can do is minimize the damage.
Maybe this would be a humane and cost-effective way to guard the US-Mexican border against illegal invaders. Establish a DMZ just inside the US. As you cross the border and enter the DMZ, the pain level would increase the farther into the DMZ you go.
Even if there are no lasting effects, that doesn't necessarily make it acceptable.
Gimme a break. Assuming that the worst effects are some mild blistering (an assumption that is apparently not independently corroborated, but for now is all the info we have), which would you prefer? The alternative is to riddle another human being with bullets, leaving him either dead or badly maimed; merely inflicting temporary pain and mild burns to incapacitate an enemy combatant is undeniably the lesser of two evils. Would you seriously prefer we shoot them dead instead?
It reminds me of our government's line on torture of prisoners. They don't consider it torture if it doesn't have lasting effects. It's kind of like a rapist, claiming it wasn't wrong because he wore a condom.
Are you actually serious? Do you have any idea what goes on when a prisoner is tortured for information? This weapon system is the Disney-ified G-rated version of even the mildest "information extraction" techniques, divided by a thousand. This is nothing in comparison. As for your highly specious rape analogy, I can't speak for everyone here, but I'd much rather be mildly burned by an energy weapon than raped, any day, no contest, they're not even in the same goddamn universe.
Honestly, you über-pacifists are never satisfied. First you bitch about the horrible casualties of war - and I won't argue with ya on that one -- but when military contractors try to develop a non-lethal weapon system you bitch about that. The world is an ugly place, human beings are ugly by nature, so any sovereign nation (not just the U.S.) needs a standing military to defend itself when and as needed; the less lethal/destructive we can make those conflicts between nations, the better. Quit your whining, this is a step in the right direction -- a small one, but important nonetheless.
I dunno, I actually like the guy more after having watched that. Aside from being entertaining to watch, I dig that in spite of his cockiness he still considers himself a B-list developer, even after a hit like God of War.
Cocky Game Dev to Slimey Marketing Guy: "Oh My God, go f--k yourself in the grotto! Cuz no one else is gonna f--k ya there! Go go go!"
I know it's against the unspoken rules of Slashdot - in addition to not talking about the unspoken rules of Slashdot - to never RTFA, but everyone who's even casually into games will get a kick outa that video.
Offtopic:
But then, of course, there is the Achilles heel of many the drunken nerd: email and message boards.
Wow, that all sounds pretty great. No, really, it does. But just one more thing: Try installing a new motherboard, and see what happens. G'head, humor us... we'll wait.
I can't see developers embracing DX10/Vista for fear of excluding a large portion of the gaming market.
Either your wishful thinking has overridden your physical senses, or you're living under a rock (or simply not a gamer and thus not paying attention to gaming-related news). Halo 3 will be a DirectX 10 title, thus requiring Vista. The strategy worked for XBox sales as a "launch title", it'll work for Vista sales; at least, that's Microsoft's reasoning. Since most "hardcore" gamers already have pretty beefy machines, the only added investment to play Halo 3 will be for Vista. The pessimist in me thinks this strategy will, unfortunately, help boost adoption of Vista among the gaming crowd once Halo 3 is released. There are several other DirectX 10-only games currently in development by other studios as well (I read about these in print mags, you can Google for 'em at your leisure).
DX10 doesn't really add any new features to the graphics capability of a system since that is largely dependent on hardware.
You may be right, as some DX9 titles still boast some impressive visual quality right now, but the point is moot. Marketing forces will prevail. It is of course inevitable that the time will come, perhaps in a year or two, when all new games are based on DirectX 10 (or higher).
Vista may not be an asset to gamers.
No, it will eventually be a requirement, whether we like it or not.
Slashdot Mirror
And any dev who codes his app to check a file like this every day instead of caching it client-side should be smacked oh-my-god-so-frickin-hard.
Very good point. (And thank you for a civil counter-argument.)
I guess what it comes down to, is whether or not the product/service vendor took reasonable and acceptable precautions to thwart abuse of their product/service. On the one end, you can never make something 100% secure (though banks to pretty good most of the time); at the other end, you can be grossly negligent in letting known problems persist (ie. many Windows security holes).
I think it's a reasonable argument that if Microsoft would improve the security of their OS, many of the problems mentioned in the summary wouldn't happen, or at least would happen far less frequently. Average people, with minimal computer use experience, wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) have to worry about some pedophile using their system as a zombie server, or implanting pop-up software through built-in services which 99% of users have no need for (and which experienced users can enable as they choose anyway). Microsoft certainly has the resources to make huge improvements in out-of-box security, and while it may be impossible to stop all intrusions, they could certainly cut them down to a tiny fraction of what they are now.
(BTW, no matter how grossly negligent a product/service provider may be -- and they should be held liable for that -- this in no way makes criminals who exploit the product's/service's flaws any less guilty. In other words, just because someone makes it easier for me to commit a crime, doesn't mean I'm any less guilty for doing so.)
Here's the problem with your assertion: The product itself did not cause any harm. Rather, a third party -- not the product creator/vendor -- caused the harm through their direct action by exploiting weaknesses in the product.
Now, I'm not defending the well-known security holes in Microsoft's operating systems. And I have no problem with the creator of a shoddy product being held liable for direct harm caused by their product. I do, however, have a problem with Entity A being held responsible for the actions of Entity B, under any circumstances, no matter who those respective entities may be -- individuals, corporations, whatever. Should Microsoft be held liable for the known security holes in their operating systems? Absolutely. Should they be held liable for how others with malicious intent exploit those holes? No.
Addressing products that are less than 100% secure does not address the underlying problem: Human behavior. Obviously, if everyone were honest, there would be no need for physical locks, computer firewalls, and so on. However, because of the malicious actions of many people, we do need those security measures. And those measures can never, ever be perfect. No padlock, no steel door, no software firewall, no router -- anything that is designed to let "some" stuff through and block the rest -- can ever be 100% secure.
If, as you state, "a software company can be shown to be grossly negligent about the security of their operating system software", then they should certainly be held liable for their own negligence, but not for the actions of others. Ever.
Of course, if English is not your first language, nor one that you studied with any depth, then your statement, and the (admittedly mild) ignorance it displays, is quite forgivable.
It does when you're paying Real World Money for a continuing service, regardless of the nature of that service (ie. "entertainment" in WoW's case). If the local phone company, to whom I pay Real World Money for a continuing service, decided to "upgrade" their system and suddenly I couldn't call my family a few towns over because of these "upgrades", yeah there'd be a verbal confrontation in order, and, depending on the legality of the "upgrades", legal action. Sure, the latter example of the phone service can be judged by many people, in their opinions, as more important than the former, but that doesn't matter; you pay for a service, you expect at least a certain minimum of quality and functionality.
I realize this is old news, but it's approaching the point where Microsoft will actually be able to enforce this. If you're not a "certified professional" with deep pockets willing to undergo (and pay for) MS certification for your software, then, eventually, your hobbyist programs (and mine!) simply will not run. Such lockout probably won't happen with this first version of Vista, but give it time. In fact some of the groundwork for locking out hobbyist computer users has already been set.
If you're not going to read the article, at least read The F'ing Summary:
It's not as if Slamdance was "stuck" with something they found distasteful, they initially chose this game to be a finalist, before caving to pressure from sponsors to kick it. Obviously the Slamdance organizers did like the game to begin with, or at least thought it had artistic merit, or they wouldn't have nominated it as a finalist in the first place. For them to do a complete about-face and remove the game afterward, based solely on the pressure of corporate sponsors, completely destroys any appearance of integrity they may have had, and reduces this once "independent" games festival to nothing more than a corporate marketing platform.
And while I'm on a rant, it needs to be pointed out to many people that, while you may find something distasteful and even patently offensive -- which in itself is certainly your right to choose what you like or dislike -- that does not give you or I or anyone else the right to silence those offensive statements or works of art. The whole point of the First Amendment is not to protect speech that you like, but to protect speech that you don't like, whether it's a social viewpoint or political commentary or an artistic endeavor, or, as is most common today, artistic endeavors that provide an avenue for controversial statements. Just remember: If someone's voice can be silenced because you don't like what they say, then yours can be silenced because someone else doesn't like what you have to say.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."
:)
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."
~Albert Einstein
Just sayin'.
Now, you could get someone you trust to help with part of the setup work so that not all the information can be tortured out of you, but then you're endangering the life of that person as well, whose name can be tortured from you, the badguys go after that person, torture them for their share of the info... you get the point.
Really, this only works in the movies.
<shakes head in disbelief>
For example, he might ask:
- Can these "experts" guarantee the authenticity of screenshots showing IP addresses, ensuring they haven't been altered? (Most likely answer: No Frickin' Way.)
- What methods were used to determine that defendant was using the IP addresses in question at the time of the infringement? Can these methods be duplicated independently by outside IT personnel? What kind of authenticity measures were applied to the networking logs indicating that the defendant was indeed using those IP addresses at the time? Are they plain text files? How can anyone be sure they haven't been altered?
- Did they verify the contents of the allegedly infringing files to ensure that they do, indeed, contain material copyrighted by the plaintiff? And yes, checksums can be faked, with some effort, so they would have to actually listen to the files. Are these files still intact on the defendant's hard drive, and if so, how were they verified to have not been placed there after seizure?
I could go on all day, but you get the point. The lawyer doesn't want legal advice, he wants technical advice. Pay attention, dude.I believe GP was merely pointing out that industrial machinery isn't the only possible source of strong temperature-affecting emissions. In either case, human activity is (theoretically) to blame, but it's not the human activity that many environmentalists want to blame.
I never stated nor implied any argument for or against that assertion, and as I've said elsewhere in this thread, that is a separate debate from a discussion of non-lethal weapons, regardless of who manufactures or deploys them.
Unfortunately, not everyone shares that ideal. If they did, this world would be an amazing place to live, instead of the conflict-ridden shit-hole we have now. Hell, even "live and let live", or the Golden Rule, would be an awesome place to start. The sad fact is, not everyone believes in those concepts, and as a consequence everyone must be capable of defending themselves against aggressors. It's a sad truth, but it is what it is. As long as human beings exist, weapons will always be with us... the best we can do is minimize the damage.
Are you actually serious? Do you have any idea what goes on when a prisoner is tortured for information? This weapon system is the Disney-ified G-rated version of even the mildest "information extraction" techniques, divided by a thousand. This is nothing in comparison. As for your highly specious rape analogy, I can't speak for everyone here, but I'd much rather be mildly burned by an energy weapon than raped, any day, no contest, they're not even in the same goddamn universe.
Honestly, you über-pacifists are never satisfied. First you bitch about the horrible casualties of war - and I won't argue with ya on that one -- but when military contractors try to develop a non-lethal weapon system you bitch about that. The world is an ugly place, human beings are ugly by nature, so any sovereign nation (not just the U.S.) needs a standing military to defend itself when and as needed; the less lethal/destructive we can make those conflicts between nations, the better. Quit your whining, this is a step in the right direction -- a small one, but important nonetheless.
Cocky Game Dev to Slimey Marketing Guy: "Oh My God, go f--k yourself in the grotto! Cuz no one else is gonna f--k ya there! Go go go!"
I know it's against the unspoken rules of Slashdot - in addition to not talking about the unspoken rules of Slashdot - to never RTFA, but everyone who's even casually into games will get a kick outa that video.
Offtopic: Thank God, now I know I'm not the only one.
Wow, that all sounds pretty great. No, really, it does. But just one more thing: Try installing a new motherboard, and see what happens. G'head, humor us... we'll wait.
You may be right, as some DX9 titles still boast some impressive visual quality right now, but the point is moot. Marketing forces will prevail. It is of course inevitable that the time will come, perhaps in a year or two, when all new games are based on DirectX 10 (or higher).
No, it will eventually be a requirement, whether we like it or not.
With spin control like that, you really, really ought to go into politics.
Or at least business PR.